I just got back from a Nordic PhD seminar in Aalborg, Denmark (from 17-19.06) on Theory and Methodology in Computer Game Research where I had been invited (rather at the last minute) to give a keynote, and, together with other speakers, act as discussant for a number of in progress PhD project proposals presented there.
The event was (efficiently) organised by the Nordic Game Research Network [http://www.ngrn.dk/] with financial support from the Nordic Research Council (NORDFORSK) [http://www.nordforsk.org/index.cfm]
Ole Ertloev Hansen (who presented a paper at the Reggio Emilia Game Philosophy Conference last year) of the InMedia VR Media Lab at the University of Aalborg [http://www.vrmedialab.dk/pr/index_e.html] professionally coordinated the event, together with Betty Li Meldgaard (see below) who also presented and discussed her PhD research project with us.
One of the other keynote speakers was Frans Mäyrä from the University of Tampere in Finland, where he directs their Hypermedia Laboratory: [http://www.uta.fi/~frans.mayra/]
Frans is founding (now ex-)president of the international Digital Games Research Association DIGRA [http://www.digra.org/]
Other keynote speakers were ethnographer Lars Holmgaard Christiansen, Ole Ertloev Hansen, game developer Nicolai Hylding, and business innovation expert Claus Rosenstand.
I found the seminar -- which also included visits to the VR Lab and to Bretteville, a new innovation zone near the docks in Aalborg [http://www.bretteville.dk/] - site mainly in Danish for now -- great fun, very interesting, and I made a lot of new friends and certainly many useful contacts for the future.
There are a few photos from the event on the web here:
Documentation regarding the research projects presented at the seminar should appear on the web too at some stage, as far as I understand. There was discussion during the evaluation phase of the seminar of plans to organise a wiki and a mail forum for the Nordic PhD Game Research Network, and first moves in that direction are being taken right now, on the initiative of Lennart Nacke from the Game and Media Arts Laboratory at the Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden.
Three of the young researchers at the seminar, Olli Leino (Finland), Betty Li Meldgaard and Bjarke Liboriussen (Denmark) also took part as presenters in the 2008 edition of the Philosophy of Computer Games conference series in Potsdam in May this year, and Olli also did a presentation at the Reggio Emilia conference in January of last year.
Olli
